Homemade Coconut Butter

by Susan on October 19, 2011

I love coconut butter. You will notice that in many of my recipes, I use coconut butter instead of coconut oil. Why? Because it has a richer flavor and a better texture than coconut oil. But coconut butter is both expensive and hard for some people to find. The solution? Make your own. But be sure to read the comments at the end of the post. It is good, but it isn’t exactly like Artisana coconut butter, my favorite.

I have seen a lot of posts on making your own coconut butter. I was pretty convinced that homemade coconut butter (made from dried coconut) could never be as good as the brand I like to use which is made from raw coconut. But this post, coconut butter, inspired me to try. I will walk you though the steps.

Homemade Coconut Butter

16 oz organic, unsweetened, dried coconut

Place dried coconut in food processor. I have a 12 cup processor. If yours is smaller, you can adjust and make two batches.

After 2 minutes

After 4 minutes

After 6 minutes. The oils are starting to release.

After 8 minutes it is looking pretty good.

After 10 minutes it is pretty liquid.

Pour it into a clean jar and let cool. Don’t worry, it isn’t hot, just slightly warm. As it cools it will harden.

Conclusion and Tips

I must admit, I was pretty impressed. It hardened (see first picture) after sitting at room temperature for a bit. It looked like coconut butter and it tasted pretty darn good. And I am very picky about the qualities of my ingredients. What I didn’t like was that it is grainy. Even after a turn in the high speed blender, I could never get the beautiful smooth consistency of the Artisana coconut butter I was comparing it to. But in a pinch, especially in recipes that the consistency would be covered up by other textures, it could work. And oh my, it is a fraction of the cost. My 16 ounces of dried coconut made over 2 cups. Probably the equivalent to a 10 ounce jar of the Artisana.

Note: My food processor is a 12 cup KitchenAid. It is a work horse. It didn’t even bat an eye at making this. But all food processors are different. Keep an eye on yours while running it this long.

I found a nice shortcut for drying/dehydrating fresh coconut to make coconut butter. I take the shredded meat of 3 coconuts and put it in a Pyrex/glass dish and microwave it for 30 minutes on high. Then I take it out and put it in the oven at 180 degrees F for about an hour. Any clumps of shredded coconut should be dry and crumbly. The microwave step saves you about 4 hours of oven time. You want to get all the water out of it, otherwise it might go bad as you are storing it in the pantry. Then I blend it up in the food processor and pour it into jars and store in pantry. You can add 1/4 or 1/8 teaspoon of salt at the end of blending if you want. Check out my website for tips on shredding coconut right in the shell to save time.
Enjoy

Sure, you may be saving time, but unfortunately, microwaving strips nutrients from food. One would be defeating the purpose of going through the effort of making such a healthy treat only to devalue it or deplete it by using a microwave. Eek. Not good.

If you would like to use fresh coconut, what you need to do is process it to flakes, then dry it in a food dehydrator, and finally reprocess the dried coconut to achieve coconut butter. I’m going to try this using the dehusked coconut available at the Asian Market.

This website is such an inspiration! I’ve tried making coconut butter using Magic Bullet with the flat blade. It takes not more than 2 minutes to turn about a cup of dried coconut into butter. Thanks for great idea!

I tried making this once in a blender and it failed. I’m sure it was just the lack of power. It looks so perfect here, it may be worth the investment in a new food processor (especially with the price of store bought)
Thanks so much for a great post!

thanks, just did a small amount in a mini blender a bit like a magic bullet (just a cheap $20 mimic) and worked a treat. Have never tried coconut butter as the local organic shop only sells the oil and said to use that. I am making Frosted B-raw-nies for the first time and wanted to stick as close to the recipe as possible and this looks and tastes great. I’m sure my reluctant hubby wont even know we are dairy and cane sugar free, let alone raw. Really happy with the coconut butter, thanks heaps, am sure I’ll use this often.

Hi Susan! I just tried this and have got to a point where the bottom layer is buttery (not quite liquid) but I’m getting a lot of coconut thrown up on the sides of the bowl by the blades. I only put about 3.5 cups of shredded coconut in and I have a 12-13 cup bowl: I’m guessing I’ve put in too little? Thanks for your help!

Hi Susan,
OMG , I am learning lots of tricks from you! I did not read all the above comments but wanted to ask, after your did the FP and ran it in a blender, did you use a Vita mix? just asking as thats what I have and would try. Thanks so much I picked up some coconut at the farmers market. I adore you! Thanks

Hi Sue! Thank you so much for this tutorial. I live in the Philippines now while my husbands in med school and lets just say import good are double expensive ! I just made this and it only costed 15 pesos! ( $.34) what a steal! Thanks!

Have you ever heard of the Hallelujah Diet? George Malkmus was dying from colon cancer and he started eating raw and became well. I think they also have a cookbook for raw food preparation. I am amazed at what you have learned and hope to learn more from you.

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